The
Reasons why you need to Fast
The
Reasons why you need to Fast
A few weeks ago a dear sister in the church asked me, "Bro. Phillips what is the reason for fasting." I gave a quick and pretty thorough answer. Since then, thanks to this little question I have done more fasting this year than in a number of years. She may wish she would have never asked me that question. Just last week again, after asking the church to join me on a three day fast a new convert asked me the same question. Tonight, I had an opportunity to create a lesson that I will be teaching in the next few days.
So tell me, why should we fast? Can you tell me? I know from history that the pentecostal movement, in fact all of the significant characters in the reformation we find a life of fasting particularly. Fasting up until the past fifty years was a common fixture in Christianity. It is interesting to consider that it has become an outdated fixture in history, because of it's lack of utilization.
Really, is it necessary? I have heard myself say, "I did alot of fasting as a young man, and it is good for you to do when your young." When I heard these words roll out of my mouth, I knew the error in the words and began to correct that in my life. I do not come to you today as an expert on this subject, but a sinner in the fact that I have not utilized it as I should in my own life and failed those who I lead in not teaching and promoting it's use in thier life.
Really, why should we fast.
The most compelling reason in all of scripture is found in the life of Jesus. A man with no sin that possessed all of the essence and nature of God, still as a man had to discipline himself to significant and notable fast. In three years of ministry we read before he really started his ministry he first conducted a fourty day fast. If we follow his pattern, we must allow this to be a spirit directed thing, but when the spirit calls us to fast, we must not excuse ourselves from it.
If Jesus had to fast, who do we think we are, as flawed and carnal individuals, think we are if we do not understand our desperate need for intense and fasting and consistent prayer? We have become professional clergy and comfortable saints rather than being sacrificial servants and prayer burdened people.
What happened to Jesus in the Wilderness of Fasting? He was tempted by the Devil. How did the Devil Tempt him? He appealed to his flesh issues.
When we fast, We deal with our flesh issues and how the devil uses them to defeat us.
When we get victory over our flesh issues, the Devil is defeated in our lives.
Fasting
Renews our Flesh so that we can handle the renewal of the Spirit
Jesus in his dealing with his disciples told them straightly when they failed to see a person possessed delivered told them that some things can only be successfully dealt with by prayer and fasting. If this was true of these that walked with the Man Christ Jesus, maybe that is why we never get victory over some spirtual strongholds and personality quirks, we never do what must be done. The call of the golden arches and the siren song of the sirloin is heard to silence the grumbling of our gut and the cry of our flesh.
Finally in the teaching of Jesus, the religious folks ask him a question, "Why do your disiples not fast?" He tells them, because it is not time to. But he goes on and says they will and then tells what fasting does. I have never heard this parable connected to fasting, but tonight in study, I discovered the key to this parable.
What was the parable taught at this question, you ask?
"Then Jesus used this illustration: "No one tears off a
piece of a new garment to make a patch for an old one.
Not only will the new garment be ruined, but the old garment will look worse
with a new patch on it!
And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the new wine bursts the old
skins, ruining the skins and spilling the wine. New wine must be put into
new wineskins. But no one after drinking the old wine seems to want
the fresh and the new. 'The old ways are best,' they say." Luke 5:36-39
Hear me, the reason why we fast is simple. It is a way to bring our
flesh to a place of recieving a fresh infusion of the Spirit. You can't
recieve something new from God and keep it, if you don't prepare your appetites
to handle it. That is why we do not retain so much of what God does for
us, we spill it and it is wasted because we do not make room for the spirit in
our lives.
This is the way the old timers did it. And the sooner we understand it, the sooner we will be able to retain what God is doing in our lives.
No matter the denomination involved if they will institute the virtues of christian discipline God will meet them at this place of commitment. What has happened is many think because we are connected to the Outpouring at Pentecost and Azusa that we are somehow superior. However it is not true, we have been devolving and regressing as a movement aimed at entertainment and carnality and this explains the condition of the church today in many places.
Feast and Believe all you like, God tells us the error of those whose god is their belly. This speaks of not only our insatiable appetite for food, but for entertainment and idleness in the enterprise of God's business.
Why should you fast?
Because your nature is carnal and must be subjected to the spiritual appetites.
Because the Devil brings bondage in our lives through our lack of spiritual disciplines.
Because when we do, the enemy is defeated and we see a Revival of Renewal and Restoration.
Jesus had to, so do we?
Jesus told us the only way to retain what God is doing right now found in fasting.
So if this be the case let me ask you a few questions?
What is the longest fast you have ever done?
When was the last time you fasted?
How many days have you fasted this year?
If your answers bring you to the same conclusion, then you will probally follow my example and begin again to rediscover the benefit, power and breakthrough that is only found in fasting.
God Bless you in your quest.
Are you hungry enough for God, to go hungry in your flesh?
Hungry!
In Him, By Him, Through Him,
Scott Phillips
For all you teachers and Ministers
My Lesson Notes on Fasting.
Why you Need to Fast?
Isaiah 58:5-12 KJV
(5) Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
(6) Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
(7) Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
(8) Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
(9) Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
(10) And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:
(11) And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
(12) And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
What Happens when we fast?
1. Humility and Repentance
2. Deliverance and Kindness
3. Family Renewal
4. Revelation and Spirtual Strength and Virtue
5. Increased Power and Effectiveness in prayer
6. A spirit of Mercy, deliverance of Judgement
7. Effective Witness
8. Spirtual Guidance
9. Restoration and Revival
We have victory and breakthrough over spiritual opposition. Spiritual Deliverance
Read and Ponder the implications of the following scriptures.
Daniel 10:1-3 & 9-14
Matthew 17:19-21 KJV
(19) Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
(20) And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
(21) Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
The Greatest Proof of need of Fasting is how Jesus went into the Wilderness and how he came out.
Luke 4:1-2 KJV
(1) And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
(2) Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
Jesus went into the Wilderness FULL of the Holy Ghost
Luke 4:13-19 KJV
(13) And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
(14) And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.
(15) And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
(16) And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
(17) And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
(18) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
(19) To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Jesus returned in the POWER of the Spirit.
When we fast,
We deal with our flesh issues and how the devil uses them to defeat us.
When we get victory over our flesh issues, the Devil is defeated in our lives.
Fasting Renews our Flesh so that we can handle the renewal of the Spirit
Luke 5:33-39 KJV
(33) And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?
(34) And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?
(35) But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.
(36) And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.
(37) And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
(38) But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
(39) No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
WE lack Pentecostal Power, because we lack the commitment demonstrated by those who had it.
We have become professional preachers and saints.
Our Churches have become centers of entertainment rather than centers of healing and miracles. Why? Because it is easier to be in practice than to be in prayer. It is easier to have fellowship than fasting.
Until we take up the disciplines that created the Pentecostal Movement we will become just as the Methodist, Baptist and Assembly of God.